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NOT ONE PROBLEM, TWO PROBLEMS He speaks quietly but there is a little edge about him. He hurries the last halves of his sentences as if he notices a door is about to close and he has to get everything through it before it does. He is early 40’s, nice looking, clean shaven and lean. His running suit looks almost pressed. It is very clean. She is a couple of years younger, but also attractive and nicely dressed, but more for business. She speaks softly and her body is soft, as in passive and faintly slumped, defeated at some point in in the past that she isn’t remembering in the moment. I ask them what the main problem is. He looks at her as if asking her to begin, or expecting her to. She says it is communication. In a couple of different ways she says that he doesn’t listen and she doesn’t know how to try anymore. He listens to this very keenly. He makes different faces as she talks – exasperation, satisfaction as she says what he expects, a sigh and then a roll of tension that passes through his face out through his fingertips. His turn. There are things he likes to do and can’t without being criticized. There are things he needs to do. She is determined to have control. I ask for examples and he gives one, about shopping for a car. She interfered. They trade shots back and forth, as in a tennis match. A half hour passes. I sum up a bit. I say, “You are like many couples I meet in the sense that you have different ideas about what the main problem is. Actually this isn’t surprising. If there really were just one problem you would have solved it already, you are both smart people” (they obviously are). In fact, these two show something that is universal about troubled couples, as far as I can tell. Each one believes that there is a main problem, and they are sure they know what it is. They assume the other one has some understanding of this too. But, surprisingly, they never agree about what the main problem is. They always have two different problems in mind, but never realize this fact. It often shocks people when I point this out, and they may be very skeptical. They may want to take what I think is a difference and make it evidence for their favorite, nominated problem. In the couple above, she might say that his version is an instance of his not listening to her or understanding what she just said. And he might take her insistence about this as illustrating how critical and controlling she is. However, if I manage to give an accurate and sympathetic statement of each separate problem, that person affirms it readily. Now they are both skeptical and both affirmed. There is a new kind of uncertainty in the room and there is something fresh about it. You might imagine they would be disappointed. They walked in knowing they had one main problem, found that actually they had two, and now they have a third – the problem of misunderstanding their problem. But it seems they are rarely disappointed at this point, but interested. At least they are heartened by my understanding their idea and restating it kindly in different words. If they are genuinely interested at this point, I know it is a good sign. With this duality in the air, I often ask them to pick some recent situation that was especially difficult, and to discuss in more detail. I may get objections here from one or both. The difficult situations are all the same, they claim, and they want to give me an account that is general, as in “He always,” or “Whenever I.” I persevere. “No, please, think of some specific situation, and each of you tell me what happened in detail. I’ll ask each of you to correct or add to what the other one says.” When we get a recent, difficult situation (often the situation that led them to call me), we go though it in detail, first from the angle of the one most eager to talk, then from the other. I do ask each of them to add to each other’s account, and offer each other corrections if necessary. This can often be done in a civil, and perhaps even somewhat humorous way. When this feels finished, I might retell the story myself in a couple of different ways. If it was our imaginary couple I would point out how it was a story of her feeling misunderstood and not listened to, and then show how he could see it as an instance of her being critical and controlling. I almost always like both people by this time (as soon as I think I understand someone in their own frame of reference to some extent, I almost always like them more). Since I like them, I can articulate their perspective in a supportive way that is also genuine. This is also perplexing and affirming at once to the couple. Each feels affirmed and understood by me and so their anxiety has dropped way down from where it was. At the same time, it is a terrible and perhaps destructive episode that we are talking about, so how in the world can it feel sort of positive? At this point we may need to go after those feelings, spell out who was hurt and how. As this emotional work continues, I often refer back to my understanding of the two problems. For one thing, each problem has a history that extends back before they met their opposing spouse. I probe and pry and try to uncover this history, sometimes in front of both of them, sometimes in a few individual sessions. Therapists are usually given extraordinary license to pry, and I take full advantage. With this history in mind, I know them better and like them still more. I can be on both sides even when they are against each other. Of coure they know each other infinitely better than I will ever come to. But in some ways I will know them better and this is what I will offer them as they keep working on the injuries they have inflicted upon each other. And they know themselves infinitely better too. However, this self-understanding is fortified from years of schemes and battles, and mine is simpler and more sympathetic. The work moves on through the shifting themes of sessions. Then I catch them in shy moments looking at each other with different eyes. Heading for their separate cars, they hold hands.
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